This section is intended to provide a background or context to the invention disclosed below. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived, implemented or described. Therefore, unless otherwise explicitly indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Wireless traffic volumes are dramatically outstripping macro cellular capability. Having multiple smaller cell coverage areas (called zone eNB access points or remote radio units, home eNBs, femto cells, pico cells, remote radio heads, or additional names) controlled by a single controller (which might be called zone eNB controller, central control unit, home eNB Gateway, eNB gateway, or additional names) is anticipated to be a potential solution to this problem. For instance, a macro cell might provide coverage over a larger area, where there are multiple smaller cells under this larger coverage area. The smaller cells might be controlled by a single controller. Such a configuration may be referred to as a heterogeneous network (HetNet). In this manner, users within the smaller cells share data resources amongst a smaller set of users and typically the HetNet configuration can provide higher capacity and a faster network overall.
However, since there are smaller cells at least partly within a macro cell, the chance exists that there will be multiple handovers between the smaller cells, or between the smaller cells and the macro cell. These handovers may not be efficient.
In another example, cells having overlapping coverage areas may be operated by different service providers or use different radio access technologies. One might say that the cells can be connected under different portions of the radio network. Also, the chance exists that there will be multiple handovers between cells belonging to different service providers and/or using different radio access technologies.